Late that night, I found myself awake for no reason, so I decided to get myself a glass of water. Leaving the room that had once belonged to Ashley’s sister Karma, I padded down to the cool stone hallway to the kitchen.

Through the big sliding doors, I spotted a human form on the pool deck and adrenaline jolted me. Intruder?

I froze in the dark kitchen, barely daring to breathe, until I saw the shape move. It was just too familiar. Beckett.

He hadn’t been sleeping well, I knew, and I couldn’t really blame him. Maybe he would have preferred to be alone, but I couldn’t leave him without at least checking. So I let myself out onto the deck.

The heat of the day had been vacuumed up by the shocking cool of the desert night and I found myself shivering in surprise. My sleep clothes of shorts and a t-shirt didn’t feel like enough. But then I realized that Beckett was sitting on the edge of the hot tub with his feet dangling in the hot water. Smart boy.

Huddling my arms around my chest, I approached him. “Hey, is there room for two here?”

He looked up in surprise. “What are you doing up?”

I shrugged. “Just thirsty. I saw you through the window. Is that okay?”

“Pull up a slab of concrete.” He patted the ground next to him.

Settling beside him, I let my feet sink into the steamy water with a hiss. “Ooh, that’s hot.”

“Give it a second.”

I did, gazing up at the dark sky and all the scattered stars across it. There was light pollution on the horizon, but the display was still impressive here. Much more than we’d had back in Irvine. “Wow.”

“I know, right?” He leaned back on his hands, tilting his face up. “I wish I knew more about what I was looking at.”

I pointed. “That’s Cassiopeia. And that’s the Dragon. And that one’s called the Church.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know.”

He laughed, and nudged me with his elbow. “Is the Church even a real constellation?”

“If it’s not, it should be.” I said.

“I guess you’ll just have to discover a star and you can name it whatever you want.”

“I’d have to discover a whole constellation, wouldn’t I?”

“If you want to be picky about it.”

We fell silent, staring into the void. As always, the longer I looked at the areas I thought were dark, the more tiny pinpricks of light revealed themselves.

“Do you think the entire sky is actually stars?”

“What?”

“You know how they keep finding stars in all the dark spaces? Those deep space telescopes and all that?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I wonder if we could actually see them all—“ I raised my hands above us and made a squishing gesture. “Like compress all of space into something two dimensional, would the entire thing be so filled with stars that there would be no black parts?”

“I don’t know,” he said wonderingly. “I guess it’s possible.”

“It would be bright all the time.”

“But you wouldn’t actually be able to see them. They’d all blur together.”

“That’s true.”

We stared long enough that I caught three shooting stars. Then I nudged him with my shoulder. “You doing okay?”

“Good enough.”

“Really?”

“Well what the hell else am I going to say? I feel…gutted. Like I don’t even know what’s real anymore.” He sighed. “I hate the phrase, ‘turned the world upside down’ but seriously that’s how I feel.”

“Nothing she said today helped, huh?”

“She said she still loves me.” He snorted. “Like, hoo-fucking-ray, I’m going to ruin your life, but it’s okay because I still love you.”

“Do you think—” I paused, not sure if this was a question I could honestly expect him to answer. “Are you, like, staying together?”

“No.” But he didn’t sound completely sure. “I mean, she called off the wedding. She secretly dropped out of the school we were supposed to go to together. And she wouldn’t even talk to me for almost a week. What part of that says, ‘Stay with me!’?”

“I see your point.”

“But clearly, I don’t know anything about anything, so hey, maybe I’m wrong.”

I found his hand, clutching it tightly in both of mine. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, maybe. But it feels awfully personal.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. You did everything she and her crazy parents wanted. I mean, seriously, Beck, you did way more than the average guy would do.”

“It’s like she doesn’t even care that this is seriously ruining my life.” His voice cracked and he muttered, “Fuck. She doesn’t even care that I still have to deal with her mess.”

“She and Bonnie have that in common.”

“Who?” He turned to me in confusion. “Oh right. Yeah, I guess they do, don’t they?”

With nothing new to say on that front, I just gave his hand a squeeze and stayed quiet.

The hot tub began some automatic cycle around us, an unseen motor humming softly and a light fizz of bubbles tickling our legs.

“Emily said when she pulled out of Middlesex, she made sure to tell them that I was still going. That I’d still need housing.”

“Well, that was…thoughtful?”

“Go figure that, huh?” He continued. “I know I should contact the housing department and tell them what happened. I know I’m going to end up screwed on this. But we’re already moving to fucking River Glen, why would I voluntarily give up the one place I actually know I can live? Why should Emily be able to take that from me?”

The bubble of avoidance here at Ashley’s house was thin, but I had clung to it for days. I still had no idea what I was going to do when we got to Middlesex. Throw myself on the mercy of the housing department? End up sleeping in a bus station? Camp in the middle of the quad? I had less than zero ideas.

“I’ll be your Emily,” I announced, almost before I knew I was going to speak.

“You will?” He knew immediately what I meant.

“What the hell else are we going to do? I am literally homeless, Beck. Seriously, what options do I have?” I looked at him. “You have a home but no Emily. I am an Emily and I have no home. I mean, what are the odds?”

He smiled. “Pretty small, I guess.”

“So…okay. We’ll go, we’ll move into your place. In six weeks, I should have all my money back. That should be plenty of time to find another place to live, right? Someone is bound to fail out by then and have to move out.”

“That’s the spirit!” He grinned. “Hope for others’ failure!”

“This is what my life has become,” I said.

“So, we’re doing this?” he asked. “We’re scamming the system?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be my Emily?”

“Just promise you’ll keep calling me Emmy.”

“Promise.”

“Then, we’re roommates.” I said. “Again.”

“Roommates,” he agreed. “You are a life saver.”

“You’re the life saver,” I said. “Remember? Literally homeless.”

“We both would have been, Em.”

“Well, not anymore. Now we’re…fake platonic husband and wife…until we get caught.”

“We won’t get caught.”